Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts faced the challenge of a lifetime in negotiations over the court’s Obamacare decision, according to a new biography. His struggle to balance conflicting goals can illuminate best practices for team talks. … Read more.

In negotiation, a smart way to determine whether to accept or reject a deal is to compare it to your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. But when our no-deal alternative is uncertain, our decisions are often flawed, new research shows. … Read more.

When negotiators get angry, their counterparts often snap to attention, research shows. We tend to perceive negotiators who appear angry as hard bargainers, and thus make lower demands of them and offer them higher concessions than when dealing with happy opponents, University of Amsterdam professor Gerben A. Van Kleef has found in his research. … Read more.

Before and during a negotiation, we often seek advice from others about whom to approach, what to offer, what to accept, and how to navigate an unfamiliar process. Whether our advisers are experienced agents negotiating on our behalf or friends sharing their personal experience, we weigh their advice and decide whether or not to follow it. … Read more.

Q: I have been doing a lot of business deals in the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia. With all due respect, negotiations seem to drag on and on in that part of the world. How can I negotiate effectively in this situation?… Read more.

Q: My company, a large multinational, contracts with an outside vendor for some of our software infrastructure. Due to new regulatory requirements, we have asked the vendor’s team to upgrade certain features of the software. We think that we should get these upgrades for free because these enhanced features may be needed by their other clients soon. They are asking us to pay $5 million for the upgrades because they claim they don’t foresee being able to sell the upgrades to other clients...… Read more.